We sat in the waiting room at the hospital, Daddy, my brother and I. Daddy had just come from Mama's room. Joining us for a while, Cousin Sharon arrived with one of her sons. The doctor appeared at the doorway and motioned Dad out into the hallway. Mere moments later, Jim and I were asked to join them.

 

"We have to make a decision, Mr. Butler," the doctor began. "Do you want to keep your wife on life support or do we take her off of it to see if she can survive without it."

 

Mama had been in a coma for over a week. Daddy spent every moment he could with her, while Jim and I relieved him or joined him in her room. All we knew was that a bout of bronchitis suddenly turned deadly, sending Mama into the depths of a coma. The ambulance raced ahead taking her to the local hospital, its wailing siren shattering the darkness of the spring evening.

 

"You kids have to help me," Daddy's eyes were bloodshot from crying over the love of his life. Jim, our younger sister, Vickie and I were all adults, but neither of us ever envisioned making a life or death decision for our parents. Vickie was at home with her husband and children. The awful decision fell on Jim's and my shoulders.

 

We talked it over before turning back to Daddy. Jim spoke for both of us.

 

"Daddy, right now, Mama has no quality of life and, according to the doctor, if she stays on life support, she might be in the hospital, in a coma, for a long, long time. We think it is worth it to give her the chance to breathe on her own; to see if she can survive. But, Daddy, you have to make the final decision."

 

The doctor returned.

 

"Have you made a decision, Mr. Butler?" he asked.

 

"Yessir, my son and daughter think we should give her the chance to be without that life support system, so that's what we will do."

 

"Do you want to see her before we remove the life support?" The doctor turned as Daddy shook his head no.

 

A little while later, the doctor came up to Daddy to announce that she was resting without the breathing tube she fought even during the coma.

 

"Fine, when can we take her home?" Daddy asked.

 

"You can't, Mr. Butler. We are checking to see if she can survive without the tube. Right now, she seems to be breathing okay."

 

Jim and I looked at each other, shocked that Daddy had no idea what the decision we made meant. He thought without that machine, we could put Mama in a wheelchair and take her back home and everything would be okay. Jim tried to explain, but Daddy turned on him.

 

"She's fine. The doctor said she was doing fine. I want to take her home!" 

 

It took both of us to calm him down enough to hear what the doctor did when he unhooked the life support. He paled at what the implications were if Mama did not handle being off the breathing tube. Eventually, exhausted from the roller coaster of emotions, he slumped down into a disturbed sleep on the uncomfortable waiting room chair.

 

We took turns spending a day and night with Mama. On my last day, I was sent home with instructions to take the phone off the hook and get some rest. I almost hit three deer that ran out in front of the car, but managed to slow and swerve out of their way. Once back at Daddy and Mama's home, I dutifully removed the phone from the cradle and fell asleep almost as soon as my head hit the sofa pillow. A raucous pounding on the door woke me barely two hours later.

 

"Maggie, your mama is dead. Your daddy needs you back at the hospital." Jim had called our neighbor, Jerry, to come and wake me.

 

I drove without regard for speed limits getting back to Daddy. Hoarse sobs tore from his throat.

 

"She's gone. Mary's gone. What do we do now?" He begged for someone to tell him the next steps to take. Mama had always been the strong one in emergencies. Daddy literally went in circles when my brother and I were in an accident four hours from home. Finally, Mama told him to pay attention to her as she took over reading the map to get them to the hospital where we wound up.

 

Mama died from bronchitis, but she also had liver cancer, which she refused to let the doctor tell us while she was alive. The final moment of her life, I was told she jerked awake as a stroke sent her spiraling into Death's cold hands.

 

Jim and I worked out the funeral arrangements. Jim had a florist shop at the bottom of the hill where our parents' home sat. Although he refused to cry in front of anyone at the house, when I went down to his shop, I found him sobbing so hard, I thought my heart would break from the hurt he felt. He had taken care of Mama for a few years and with Daddy's retirement and a light stroke that followed, Jim took care of him, too.

 

The day of the funeral, Vickie, who worked at the police department, found our mother's funeral procession led and followed by police cars honoring their employee and friend's parent. After the burial, we returned home. Somehow, Daddy got there before us. We walked in to a frightening scene, as he sat in his lounge chair, surrounded by every gun he owned. Being an avid hunter, the number was considerable.

 

"Daddy, we have to get these things put away. Vickie's coming with her babies and they cannot be around these." Jim grabbed a rifle and a shotgun, while I picked up revolvers and we got all of them locked in the gun cabinet just as Sis and her family arrived. We felt confident that all weapons were accounted for.

 

For five years following his wife's death, Daddy contemplated suicide. Weekly calls, sometimes two and three a week, found me begging him to not do anything so foolish.

 

"Daddy, your son would find you. Do you remember when Penton, your brother, shot himself? Granny found him and it almost killed her. Would you do that to your son?" I sometimes scolded, sometimes soothed, but always I was begging him not to do such a terrible thing. He promised that it would not happen - until the next week when we started all over again.

 

I had moved from Maryland to Florida and attempted to come see Jim and Daddy at least a few days every other month, partly to help Jim with floral deliveries and partly to keep Daddy company and maybe change his attitude about joining Mama. On my last visit, Jim and I got into an argument. Although we dearly loved each other and would do anything for each other, when we fought, it was no holds barred. He would eventually go into a sulk, pretending I no longer existed, while my temper tended more toward a screaming match. This particular day, I just gave up.

 

The day before, Daddy asked us to help him buy a new suit, since he had lost quite a bit of weight. After accomplishing that task, I told Daddy my daughter and I would be headed home the following morning. It never occurred to us what his real reason for buying the suit might be.

 

"Please stay just one more day," he begged. But, I was adamant that I would not put up with my pouting brother any longer. By 7 a.m. the next day, my daughter, Jaimie, and I were on the road.

 

The next morning, I was called up to the front desk where I worked. My husband's cousin, Jane, waited for me. Surprised to see her, I smiled and moved to say hello, wondering how she knew where I worked. I never told her.

 

"Maggie, Bruce is on the phone. He said your dad is dead." She reached for me as I staggered back to lean against the wall. "I've already asked if you could be excused and your manager agreed. Where is your purse and any other things you might need?"

 

I walked to the car where Jane's husband, Frank, waited. Jane motioned me to the front seat. Frank handed me a cell phone, the first I ever used. He showed me how to operate it.

 

"H-hello," I began.

 

"Honey, did Jane tell you? Your dad died today?" My husband's voice shook as it came through the small phone.

 

"H-h-how did he die?" I asked, but did not want to know, because I already knew.

 

"Honey, he shot himself."

 

I threw the phone down on the floorboard.

 

"Noooooo, damn you, no! You promised you wouldn't. Damn you, you promised me!"

 

Frank picked up the phone, spoke to Bruce, and after handing it over to Jane, he drove me home.

 

It took him five years to fulfill his wish, five years when we felt safe that all guns were locked away. And they were, except for one. Daddy always kept a pistol between the mattress and box springs of his bed, in case anyone ever tried to break into the house. 

 

It's odd, the things that cross our minds when a loved one dies. With me, it was why didn't I give him that one more day. With Jim, he lived with the thought that Daddy asked him that morning to make some cornbread for breakfast. Jim had a number of orders at his shop to get out and promised that the next morning they would definitely have cornbread, but he just did not have time that morning.

 

He was working in the shop and heard the shot that broke our hearts. There were several kids playing out in the yard at the next house and he thought it was a sound from the game they were playing.

 

When he came into the house at five, Daddy was in bed, which wasn't unusual. The next morning Jim got up early, made a pan of cornbread and called for Daddy to get up. After several minutes with no response, he knocked on the bedroom door and told him the cornbread was ready. Usually Daddy woke early, so when he didn't appear at the kitchen counter to eat breakfast, Jim thought he might be sick. 

 

He opened the door. Daddy lay on his right side with the covers up around his ears. Jim reached out and when he touched his shoulder, he knew Daddy was dead. The idea that he never got to eat the cornbread haunted Jim for the rest of his life. With me, I vowed to stay a little longer if someone needed me and prayed I could keep that vow.

 

Two years ago, I lost my daughter after she took the Covid Booster shot. Maybe it's a family tradition by now, but with the loss of my husband, my brother and my daughter, the thought of ending my own life stays with me day in and day out. But there will be no one to find me, no one to be thrown into shock forever for some menial thing they don't do just before I die.